posted at 3:35 pm on August 18, 2009 by Ed Morrissey

This should be good news for the Drill Here, Drill Now contingent, right? The Obama administration has committed $2 billion in loans to exploit offshore oil resources in hopes of extracting a major new source of petroleum. Despite the White House pursuit of a cap-and-trade scheme to limit the use of fossil fuels, the new field could help bring lower energy prices, and their support of this exploration of American resources shows their flexibility on energy policy.

The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil’s state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil’s Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil’s planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan.

The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a “preliminary commitment” letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount. Ex-Im Bank says it has not decided whether the money will come in the form of a direct loan or loan guarantees. Either way, this corporate foreign aid may strike some readers as odd, given that the U.S. Treasury seems desperate for cash and Petrobras is one of the largest corporations in the Americas. …

But it still doesn’t allow the U.S. to explore in Alaska or along the East and West Coasts, which could be our equivalent of the Tupi oil fields, which are set to make Brazil a leading oil exporter. Americans are right to wonder why Mr. Obama is underwriting in Brazil what he won’t allow at home.

This seems odd in several ways. For this particular administration to offer billions in loans to a foreign oil company makes a mockery of a number of Obama talking points. First, why does Petrobas need loan guarantees to pursue its exploration? As the WSJ notes, it is a very large corporation, which should have the resources to get to the oil on its own. Obama, who has ripped American corporations for their supposed subsidies in American tax policy, now wants to use an empty Treasury to give cash to a Brazilian oil company.

Next, Obama keeps insisting that we cut back on our use of fossil fuels. He and his allies in Congress have blocked exploration of American oil fields off both shores for decades, and Obama insists that we would only keep enabling our oil addiction if we started drilling off of our own coasts. Yet he has no trouble committing $2,000,000,000 of our money for Brazil to drill off its own coast.

Here’s a proposal: Let American companies do what Obama is paying Brazilian companies to do — drill offshore. We won’t have to pay them money or float them any loans to do it, either. In fact, we will make money off of the leases, while the effort creates hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs in the US, creating more tax revenue rather than emptying out the Treasury.

Update: Who else besides Obama has taken an interest in Petrobras? Hmmmmmm:

His New York-based hedge-fund firm, Soros Fund Management LLC, sold 22 million U.S.-listed common shares of Petrobras, as the Brazilian oil company is known, according to a filing today with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Soros bought 5.8 million of the company’s U.S.-traded preferred shares.

Soros is taking advantage of the spread between the two types of U.S.-listed Petrobras shares, said Luis Maizel, president of LM Capital Group LLC, which manages about $4 billion. The common shares were 21 percent more expensive than preferred today, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. …

Petrobras preferred shares have also a 10 percent additional dividend, said William Landers, a senior portfolio manager for Latin America at Blackrock Inc.

“Given that there will most likely never be a change in control in the company, I see no reason to pay a higher price for the common shares.” Brazil’s government controls Petrobras and has a majority stake of voting shares.

This story is from last Friday. Is it a coincidence that Obama backer George Soros repositioned himself in Petrobras to get dividends just a few days before Obama committed $2 billion in loans and guarantees for Petrobras’ offshore operations? Hmmmmmmmmmm.

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Is it a coincidence that Obama backer George Soros repositioned himself in Petrobras to get dividends just a few days before Obama committed $2 billion in loans and guarantees for Petrobras’ offshore operations?

Everyone knows that Soros is an omniscient being capable of time travel…it’s no coincidence at all…Just ask him…he’ll say “Obama who?”.

That move frees up a lot of cash, and it actually gives Soros a steady flow of dividend income. Yahoo Finance does not show any dividends payed out for the common stock, but it does show $0.45/share for the prefered.

Heh. Almost exactly 1 year ago today Michelle Malkin wrote about the Democrat Party’s George Soros slush fund, and noted that it would be “political payback in spades”. I don’t think even she could have imagined just how deep this payback was going to go.

It’s not odd, it’s just racist. The Dem’s argument goes like this: rich white Americans shouldn’t have to look at oil wells while sunning themselves on the beach. That’s something for BROWN people to contend with.

Is it a coincidence that Obama backer George Soros repositioned himself in Petrobras to get dividends just a few days before Obama committed $2 billion in loans and guarantees for Petrobras’ offshore operations?

Is the Pope German?

Is Grace Kelly hot ?? ( circa 1957 )

Obama as a puppet of Soros stinks so bad that even the DoucheBag media might peek into this……….

I’m sure that any minute now we are going to hear the leftists and Democrats screaming in outrage over this market manipulation by Obama and Soros Fund Management LLC to the benefit of Soros and his leftist causes!

Remember when Bush and Chaney were vilified for the profits made by Halliburton, benefiting from supposed preferential treatment in Iraq through the DoD?

I’m SO sure that we will hear similar outrage from the Dems, the liberals and the MSM over this Obama – Soros market manipulation! Any minute now! Any minute …

Yet another crime has just been committed. Is there really any way that he can go four years without getting impeached?

J in STL on August 18, 2009 at 7:31 PM

I hope not. If George Bush had done anything like this, the rabid mob — Pelosi, Reid, Frank and the rest, plus their media lapdogs — would be drooling all over impeachment resolutions at this very hour.

Eight months, and Osama Obama has done enough to get any American President without his peculiar advantages thrown out of office and, perhaps, indicted into the bargain.

The dirty dealing may get smoother in time. After all, Obama is the first President Soros has owned, and it probably requires a learning curve to drive one properly.

“A Global Marshall Plan, to be developed in an open process of civil society, is a democratic counterdraft to the current way in which the rules of global economy are negotiated behind the doors. The trade unions see a chance in such a process to make progress in the fields of social human rights and labour rights.”

Frank Bsirke
Chairman Ver.di (German trade union)

“On an international level, there is no democracy and the gap between North and South and rich and poor is getting wider every day. We must intensify our efforts to reverse this development thats leads to a non-liveable world – with the goal of implementing a Global Marshall Plan.”

Susan George
author, ATTAC France

“The Marshall Plan was a visionary plan. The same kind of visionary plan is needed today, not to rebuild once-prosperous countries and economies, but to bring prosperity, economic development, and democratic government to places and peoples who have been denied them too long.”

Just noting that Fred P Hochberg is the head of the EX-IM bank. He served under Clinton as head of the SBA. His major business experience was working for his mother who ran the Lillian Vernon gift catalog company.

In between he was settled in at the New School in NYC along with a number of other Clintonista bundlers and other insiders including a guy by the name of Norman Hsu.

ANYTHING having to do with that currency manipulating Hungarian slob George Soros IS tainted. That low-life pig couldn’t care less about any nation’s survival, much less prosperity. He’s only invested insofar as what’s in it for him.

George Soros is the man behind the curtain. He is responsible for every thing related too the collapse of the economy. He is also financed Obama’s campaign. He walked away with two billion dollars from the recession. He backed Clinton, Gore, and Kerry. Will anyone in the media investigate George Soros Answer NO.

BWAAAHAA!! And I bought Petrobras b/c the Dems block offshore drilling here so I fugured eventually oil would go back up..and now we will be funding that drilling in Brazil? sweet. they have the sugar market cornered too don’t they?
hmmmmmm

This is one of those times when I’m so mad (although not entirely shocked) that I’m just scrolling right past the joke posts. It’s not even worth joking about. There is something afoot which makes me realize that we have to defeat this criminal administration by whatever means necessary.

Is it a coincidence that Obama backer George Soros repositioned himself in Petrobras to get dividends just a few days before Obama committed $2 billion in loans and guarantees for Petrobras’ offshore operations?

Soros Fund Management LLC, sold 22 million U.S.-listed common shares of Petrobras, as the Brazilian oil company is known, according to a filing today with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Soros bought 5.8 million of the company’s U.S.-traded preferred shares.

These filings reflect buying/selling over the past quarter. Soros did not buy these shares just days before loan announcement – he’s been buying them over the past 3 months.

Is it a coincidence that Obama backer George Soros repositioned himself in Petrobras to get dividends just a few days before Obama committed $2 billion in loans and guarantees for Petrobras’ offshore operations?

Hey, don’t get me wrong, I’ve been invested in Petrobras for years and I’m trilled about future drilling in Brazil.

But isn’t this environmental relativism ridiculous?! I thought the Dems wanted to “save the planet,” yet it looks like the only part of the planet worth saving is directly offshore this country. In a world where the discussion revolves around the idea that “what is good for the world is good for all”… it is terribly ironic to see Democrats willingly embrace “environmental devastation” abroad.

Environmental relativism is too common within the ranks of Democrats… how can they expect us to take them seriously?